A few years ago, programmer Alex Yatskov created Mangle (a portmanteau of Manga and Kindle), which made it easier to read manga on the Kindle. It was designed for older and less-image-friendly generations of Kindles.

When combined with the new Kindle 3, which has an improved screen that handles images better, the idea of reading manga on a Kindle becomes quite appealing.

Mangle is cross-platform, open-source software that lets you rotate and down-sample images, automatically generate book data to keep manga pages in order, and sort and organize images with a bulk rename feature. With Mangle, users can change their viewing settings to meet their preferences, fitting width or height and zooming in/out as needed. IReaderReview has a batch of photos showing how the manga images look on the new Kindle, as well as more details about how the program works with Amazon's new hardware.

Admittedly, I don't read books as much as I used to. So as neat as they looked, I never saw much need in getting a Kindle. On the other hand, I read manga on a regular basis. They're like my version of soap operas--slow-moving, constant, and not always good--but after investing in 400 chapters of manga, I feel compelled to see what happens next. The two big problems I have with manga are the small pages and their tendency to take up lots of physical space. It's hard to find space for 34 volumes of Case Closed. Digital copies would help in both of these instances.

But I do wonder how much manga the Kindle can hold; since these are image/PDF files, I would assume they would take up more space than your typical e-book. Additionally, manga distributors have recently taken down various free online manga Websites, but if priced digital distribution comes to be, this might be the ideal way for us non-book-readers to get our read on.

The third-generation Kindle, rebranded in fall 2011 as Kindle Keyboard, is the best model with a physical means of input; and it provides a better contrast and reading experience than the less expensive fourth-generation Kindle device.